Homes, Terrace, Heights: Home Away From Home
As an oft internet browsing young buck, I’ve found that there is one destination that as a young black man, I was destined to find. I think I remember this site in its infancy, before the annoying surveys, advertisements for JobCorps, and dating scene. I discovered this site and the first thing I noticed was that it was the slowest damn site in existence. Of course, the fact that I was still using dial-up to access said site could very well have been the problem. But some 6 years after I first ventured to it, its still moving slower than legless men running a marathon, and I have a DSL connection at home and a government issue T-Infinity connection at the place of employment.
And this place has gone to hell in a handbasket. Not that it was the most advanced or wonderful location in the first place but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the internet equivalent of the projects at this point. Yes bitches…
…I’m talking about BlackPlanet. Or as I like to refer to it: BlackPlanet Homes.
[***DISCLAIMER: I know a lot of you have BlackPlanet pages. Hell I used to have one. But facts are facts. If you still regularly chill on, check your Notes, or find people to date and/or meet up with on BlackPlanet, and are over the age of 18, you need Jesus. And if Jesus isn't your thing, you need to just destroy your page and quit hanging out in the damn e-projects. If the words that are coming out of my fingers happen to offend any of you BlackPlanet Homes dwellers, then by all means, kiss my ass. Thanks.***]
My people, you know I love you. I even have an “I Heart Black People” shirt to prove it. But somebody, anybody needs to riddle me this shit:
How the FUCK did we create the PROJECTS on the internet????
*having trouble breathing*
Before I get there though…there is something that I just don’t understand. I can’t quite grasp the reasoning behind why everything on the internet black related tends to go to shit at some point…hmm…or starts out as shit. Let’s take this to real life as well. We all have family members who live in the projects. If you don’t, well, slap me silly and call me Susan because you are the ONE AND ONLY anomaly. Being as we all have family members living in the projects, we’re all subject to stories from the old folks about how nice the neighborhood “used” to be. When the projects first opened (like its an amusement park) nice families lived there who just couldn’t quite make ends meet (big ups to University Homes, the first public housing project in America in the great city of Atlanta, GA…now THAT’S something to be proud of…you have just witnessed misguided pride).
Over time, and I’m trying to think of a nice way to say this, the projects went to shit. Period. My mother grew up in Bowen Homes in Atlanta. According to my family that USED to be a nice neighborhood. Well I still have family there and I shit you not, there is NO WAY I’d go in there unless I knew the code words: my cousin is such and such, please don’t shoot. The fact that it’s on Bankhead Highway is bad enough (which should get its own Behind The Ghetto special on vh1), but damn…Bowen Homes ain’t no joke. But I hear stories about how it used to be a nice place.
Hmmm…
So my question is, how do we turn nice things to horrible shit??? And it happens all the time. My neighborhood in Atlanta, Peyton Place, was a nice neighborhood according to my family back in the late ’60s and ’70s.
Ummm…somebody got shot on my back porch in the late ’90s. Thank you.
So what is it about black neighborhoods that turns them to shit and how the fuck did we manage to bring that same mentality to the gotdamned INTERNET???? We can blame crack, the CIA, and OJ Simpson for some of the bad shit in real life, but crack doesn’t have shit to do with the internet.
Good God. Only in BlackPlanet Homes can you find page after page of I_GivGr8_Head or DC_PhatHoney_69 or SuckTNutz. And it’s bad enough that the user names suck ass (hmm, that’s probably a user name), but good got damn…the graphics HELL that exists is horrendous. Pages of scrolling words, both horizontally and vertically…shit looks like a fuckin’ crossword puzzle with no clues. Famed “prison stance” pictures and hoodrat “ass like that” photos align every page. There are shoutouts to the dead homies and to every ghetto neighborhood.
[***Sidenote: This overly "extra" mentality that exists on BP reminded me of this woman I saw in a local mall in DC on Sunday. This chick in an unnamed store had on, no bullshit, 30 fuckin' rings. On one hand. On five fingers. And that's all I could count because I KNOW I missed some. There were rings everywhere. Up to the chimney, wound round the stairs...spaghetti spaghetti EVERYWHERE. My people, sometimes you can go to fuckin' far. I blame her parents who never explained to her the art of moderation. And it is an art. Which could also explain why she has a retail job with 5 inch fingernails and wonders why she "accidentally" discounted my hat purchase. We gotz 2 do mo' betta! ***]
And the worst shit of all…niggas gangbangin’ on BlackPlanet.
Some.
Body.
Kill.
Me.
I volunteered at a high school in DC. I think every student in the school had a BlackPlanet Page. I remember one day, I watched one of my students update his page with some of the worst graphic choices I’ve ever seen. I mean his shit made the graphics in the movie Anaconda look like the best use of digital technology ever. I asked him why in the hell he would put that asstastic mess of pure fuckery all over his page and he informed me that his page was that hotness and I was too old to understand.
Thank God.
And the streaming music…my goodness. Only on BP can you be treated to the same 15 second snippet of Khia’s blockbuster single “My Neck, My Back” over and over and over to your heart’s desire. With no option to shut the shit off.
I hate BlackPlanet.
[***Another Sidenote: Speaking of music, the good folks over at Jackson G. Tickle Enterprises have decided to launch WJGT Radio and join into the fray that is radioblogging. I talk about music so much I figure I might as well put the world (or however many people come thru here) onto what myself, as well as the many guest DJ's are listening too. Coming soon to JGT Enterprises, the subsidiary, WJGT Radio: Panama's City. Breaking new acts (including my own songs) and providing you the virgin listen of many albums that won't be out for a few weeks. Yes...I got that crack! ***]
I honestly don’t get it. How the hell did BlackPlanet manage to go from a place where black folks could meet to a place that Hoodesha and JuanCarlosEstebanMustafa Jones could create the most utterly fuckerific artistic catastrophes and claim sets with pictures of their homies standing around with Tech 9′s.
I guess the better question is, WHY???
Why does this shit occur? Did everybody who had some sense just abandon ship at some point?? Is that how BlackPlanet devolved into the projects that it is today?? And why is it SO DAMN POPULAR with the kids?? Actually that’s probably an easy answer. If I’m 16 and I see a page sexkitten_lickylicky_6969696969696969, well, I’m hitting that page up.
And why the fuck can’t we leave the hood in the hood. BlackPlanet Homes is kind of like BET to me. White people don’t know it exists for the most part, or care, but when they do happen upon it, it just confirms the shit they already thought. Hell…it confirms the shit I think, which is that no matter how hard we try or the intention…niggas will ultimately find their way into it and take over.
That’s a damn shame.
So I guess there’s nothing left to do but join the fray, so here’s my newest user name:
WE_AINT_GONNA_MAKE_IT
BlackPlanet Homes…where we live.
i never liked BlackPlanet…never! but you raise an interesting issue, why do black folks have the “Medusa” touch? we gotta have some “Midas” in us some where…don’t we!?
actually, we do have the “Midas” touch – Midnight Star sang rather eloquently about it! But aren’t there black communities in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard that have retained their stature?
the difference is they understand the value of their property. some where along the line someone explained to them “there’s value in what you hold dear to you!” if you have no vested interest in any endeavor or property, what difference does it make if it falls to shit?
there’s a name they give people like that…
…they’re called RENTERS!
ownership means responsibility, you break it…you fix it. RENTING means you place a call to the owner to fix it. black folks have been rentin’ far too long. so the RENTERS mentality permeates e’rything we do…”this shit ain’t mine! it ain’t in my name…i’m just here for the moment!”
some how those moments turn into 30/40 years…its crazy! black people can claim the ‘hood all they want, but they don’t own the ‘hood. even if they own a small portion of it, someone hasn’t explained to them the full value of their worth.
anywhere people congregate without the responsiblity of takin’ care of the space they’re in turns into the ‘hood, because neighbors are accountable to each other. doesn’t matter if its the internet, the block or the dormitory!
You are literally gonna kill me one of these days.. I am so *dead* over here I can hardly type. You are just a fuckin’ fool! What is the matter with you? *rotflmfao!!*
But gotdamn if you aint speak the troof in regards to BlackPlanet. I’ll admit that I had a BlackPlanet page. Hell, I had a few BP pages.. *lol* I was going through a bi-curious stage (well I am still bi-curious, tmi perhaps?) in my life and was trying to meet some lesbians to turn me out.. Ok so anyway… *lol* BP is ghetto as hell!
The notes I was getting was crazy! At one time I used to actually post some of the notes I got on my website just so the public could get their laugh on at some the clown ass niggas on BP.. Crazy ass boys and girls on BP I tell ya..
It is like the damn projects. You even have people fightin’ on that shit s0n! How can you fight over the internet? That is why when you mentioned gangbangin’ on BP I fell out because that shit is so fuckin’ true! You aint the only one who hate BP…
And to think, members on there be really working on their BP page.. Customizing that shit, adding music, asking people to sign their damn guestbooks. Just all kinds of crazy shit.. Whew lawdy!
You bought back some memories with this post. Bad memories though that I never want to remember again.. *lol*
P.S. Stop faking the funk though, you know you just checked your BP notes this morning.. You saw that flashing orange light and was all excited.. *lol* Does it still flash orange when you have new notes? *scratching my head*
LMAO… dammit shut up Panama, you know you was trying to come borrow some sugar, ketchup and salami from my BP Homes living, in’nanet project residing ass last weekend. You know you live next door to me in the BP homes on the ultra low-low.
Jus’ playing. Don’t send your renegade band of ultra-loyal groupies to kill me, mm’kay? Love ya.
I still got a page on there. But I’m ghetto. I never denied that shit either, so there.
Boy you are a fool!!! This was so funny and OH SO TRUE!!!! BlackPlanet Homes?! LOL!!! Why does my fourteen year old cousin have a page on that ghetto website talking about her likes and dislikes. Her likes include BIG DICK and guys that KNOW HOW TO USE THEM! WTF!!!!! I tried to get on that page in college, but it was just too much for me. I lasted for about a month, but I had to get the hell up outta there. Maybe, I am too stuck-up, lol. Whatever the case BlackPlanet Homes is NOT the place for me!
Man I had like 3 blackplanet pages. I still do but I can’t remember my passwords to them. BP was just always bootleg to start with. I remember when it had that pager system that didn’t work half the time. As a Primo Internet Stalker, I found lots of long lost acquaintances on BP. Since they took off that powerful nigganet search feature, I have found absolutely no use with the site anymore. They shoulda neva gave niggas HTML!
P.S. EMBEDDED MUSIC IS LAME! Stop abusing it.
Weird but I’d never heard of black planet until a friend forwarded his page to our list serve about a year or so ago. I might have to check it out so I can see what you’re talking about.
ROFLMAO I have never, ever, I repeat EVER had a Black Planet page, because in my opinion, it’s ALWAYS been ghetto. I had 908080808097897977979797 friends with pages, so I went on it once…maybe twice, the most… but I never had my very own page. Plus, I was always married, or in a relationship (serial monogamist) so I never did the whole internet dating thing. *shrug*
Come on mannnnn…we both know that as long as it’s free, there will be a BP. LOL@Black Planet Homes. Too funny…
This is just how it happenes with clubs…At least in DC. When a spot first opens, it’s chocked full of reasonable BLACK people. Next thing you know, through word of mouth or on the radio, the n*ggas find out and it goes straight to hell.
I’ll tell you how we can ghettofy something even on line…By the way, I agree with X. BP has always been ghetto. But here’s how it got worse…The unskilled, just barely having employment, got computers and internet access at their desks. And I will extend it further…How is blogging much different?? I see Blogger headed for the same place as Xanga (is that how u spell it). I hear it’s already the suburban equivalent of BPHomes. And with the on-the-low stuff already going on in just this circle of Black bloggers alone, I see you awarding ‘project’ status to it in about two years…So soon as ALL the n*ggas find out.
That post was the realness. I just went to BP to peep how it’s turned out (I haven’t seen it since like ’99 or some shit) and it’s still ghetto as hell.
A few things I noticed:
*90% of the males rap
*too many males have staged pictures with other males on some ol Lifetouch/Sears Studio type shit
*all the fat chicks foolishly describe themselves as thick
*apparently Aaliyah is like Tupac to young Black females..mad RIP shout outs.
that’s freaking hilarious. I knew one dude who’s used a picture of his chest as his wallpaper.
I have to agree with you and Kajuana. I also have to admit that I have/had a BP page but learned quickly that it was not the place for me. Apparently, I missed the notice that niggas weren’t trying to read no intellectual shit. LOL…But blogging is certainly going in that direction as well. I don’t know who made the comment, but it’s true. Whenever “we” can get our hands on something that is free, it’s almost inevitable that EVERYONE with access to the “innanet” is gonna come through to shout out their hustle, hustling friends, and dead idols.
We really are twins. My mom, former resident of one of the most hoodest of projects in DC (Berry Farms), said the same thing about the good ole days. Talking about how good folk were and how descent it was. I am so under the conclusion that the generations before us were so disillusioned. Why? It is hard to believe that Bowen Homes or Berry Farms were ever anything worthy of being proud of. Secondly, they try to bag on us about a million and one things like they were the golden kids. For examples, baby mama drama and just start in the nineties. Try the 1890′s. But I digress.
@ KAJUANA – OOKKKKK???? PRRREEAACCHHHHH!!!!! (Cuz I’m nodding)!!*************As for you Panama? JuanCarlosEstebanMustafa Jones? sexkitten_lickylicky_6969696969696969? AHhhhhh shytttt! SOMEBODY PASS ME MY INHALER!!!!!! *Falling out!*
Hey,
I REMEMBER BLACK PLANET!!!! Those were the days..
I have never had a Black Planet page. Won’t ever have one. When my daughter, at the ripe age of 15, told me she had one, I took a look at it and immediately set her down for a talk. She got rid of that shit fast. LOL
We will not have that mentality walking around in my house. I mean, how would it look: Mama’s the deep side of militant–daughter an e-project queen in the making.
When I say black folks are colorful, this is a beautiful example of just how colorful. E-projects–I love that phrase. LMAO
I visited black planet once, waaaaaaay back in the day when it first started, but just because I thought Omar was cute.
Yes, I know that makes no damned sense. Shit, I’ve read books because I thought the author was cute.
You owe me a new keybpard for writing that mess. You need to post warnings or something because that is not fair. I am cracking up over here at ‘JuanCarlosEstebanMustafa Jones’.
Now, I have to say I never had a Black Planet page. When I was younger lot of my friends did and I couldn’t stand looking at them. Scrolling words , broken images, and loud ass streamed music everywhere does not a good webpage make. A bunch of kids trying to ‘hook-up’ is all Black Planet is/was and I was interested in more than that. When I was older and I found out that the people at commnityconnect.com own and orchistrate all that nonsense as well as Migente and Asian Avenue, that was it for me. Apparently there has to be an online ‘Project’ for everyone and the people at Community Connect are instigators of online ‘White Flight’ as it were. They’re equal opportunity ghetto-ifyers. The new school sites like Friendster, Hi5, Bebo, and Zorpia are all the same rubbish.
I guess you can’t have the good without the bad.
nigga i’m ashamed to admit my MOMS still be on BP like whuh, WHAT. i’m tryna convey to her that she’s the old nigga in the club.
**hanging head in shame**
These are my confessions…Yes, I HAD 2 pages. Yes, I met people off of BP. And yes, I might single-handedly bring down blogger if this internet stalker-chick, who incidently reigns on BP with 5 pages or more, doesn’t stop checking for me and studyin’ my got-damn pics on blogger and leaving these ig’nant-ass comments on my blog(s)…so yes, I’ve had to relocate twice. I’ve been gettin’ googled like a muthafukka over some guy. And said-bitch even set up a fake blog to try to holla at dude and simultaneously curse me out. My damn sitemeter has become an alarm system protecting my house.
**sigh**
I retaliated by telling her to take that wack shyt back to BP…and she did. She proceeded to bitch me out over there where she was more comfortable and complete sentences are unnecessary.
I know, I know…another reason why we can’t rise as a people. I am ashamed.
“Pages of scrolling words, both horizontally and vertically…shit looks like a fuckin’ crossword puzzle with no clues.” LMBAO!!!
BlackPlanet is very raunchy, but yet I log on every.damn.day. I think I do it just to see ‘what’ is going to send me a note today. It’s actually quite fascinating LOL. And now, li’l boys sent me notes… I mean 17,18,19… talking about “Hey Ma” and “Sup shawty” acting like they didn’t notice that I’m TWENTY-SEVEN years old I wouldn’t possible be interested in talking to their young asses. BP really DOES suck, yet it’s all so fascinating at the same time. You never know what you’re going to see next when you’re browsing that site. Chicks exposing their goodies, men showing their schlongs, She-males dressed like Beyonce… marquees and scrolling words going up and down your screen, diamond graphics falling from the top of the page… you NEVER know. Wow, the internet ghetto at its best.
I know I just commented but BEFORE I read the other comments. AFTER I read them I concluded…
Y’ALL ARE SOME UPPITY-ASS BLACK FOLKS.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that but DAYUM… Take the pole out of your asses and stop acting like y’all are above all. I bet like 87% of you guys chill on BP on a weekly basis but are too afraid to admit it for fear of being dubbed ‘ghetto.’ It’s really OK to have some ghetto tendencies. Not saying that I approve of BlackPlanet (b/c I don’t, it just fascinates the hell out of me for some reason) but I’m not so uppity as to think I’m too good to log on. You disagree?
*bending over and pointing to ass*
Oh yeah, tell Bryant and Condy I said hello, will you?
Nice post. LOL.
LOL @ Mia’s 2nd post to. I have to agree with her, b/c I still go on there every now and then to check notes, although I know BP presently annoys me, but that’s about all I do…so therefore, if BP were to honestly vanish today, I don’t think I’d at all distraught. lol.
oh.my.gosh!!! That was too funny…bless their hearts.
LMAO at you. It’s funny because its true.